A portfolio of my past writing, and new stories as I develop them. Almost always deliberately funny.

Friday, May 27, 2016

The NRR Project: ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’

The Star and Stripes
Forever

Unknown band

1897

2:02

Chuck Klosterman recently wrote about John Philip Sousa, in
connection with his recent story, “Which Rock Star Will the Historians of the
Future Remember?”, published in the New York Times on May 23. I’d love to cut
and paste the entire swathe of his meditation on Sousa’s significance and his
place in popular culture – but there are copyright laws. Here’s a link – it’s
right at the beginning of the story.

In essence, he asserts that Sousa is synonymous with the
march, and stands for the entire genre in the public consciousness, the
certainty of there being many more composers of the same kind in the historical
records, or indeed thriving today. (You can imagine my surprise when, as a
child, I found out that living people wrote hymns, too. I thought they were all
whipped by Martin Luther with a guitar and some head arrangements about 500
years ago, and constituted the vocabulary of faith.)

“The Stars and Stripes Forever” is his emblematic work.
Klosterman rightly makes associations with this tune and national holidays, the
circus, and college football. This selection by the National Recording Registry
features the first known recording of the march, on one of Emile Berliner’s
disc recordings.

Sousa mastered a brisk, aggressive, yet decorous kind of
music fit for the birth of the American empire, which began with our Latin
American and Pacific interferences of the same era. These martial tunes, big bombastic
blasts of bravado, exude the stereotypical idea of “American-ness” – energetic,
optimistic, proud, naïve, and casually violent. His 4/4 rhythms incite the feet
to tap, or march heedless of the destination. Music as propaganda.

There was no triggering incident that brought “The Stars and
Stripes Forever” into the spotlight. It’s simply memorable. Its clever play
with dynamics, the variant themes, that nifty little piccolo obbligato, and the
roller-coaster buildups, smashes, and swerves in the piece as inherently
fascinating.

Klosterman includes the circus in the associations he has of
this tune, interestingly, it’s only heard at circuses, or theaters, when
tragedies strike. Known as the “Disaster March,” it’s only played when
life-threatening emergencies occur, as a signal to staff to help evacuate the
audience. Of course, any disaster is probably made worse by throwing a Sousa
march into the mix, but hey.

Of course, it’s the tune we hear when Popeye eats his
spinach, gains strength, and saves the day. And, of course, as kids we all
loved its variant, “Crazy Mixed Up Song,” aka “Be kind to your web-footed
friends . . . “ That’s the price of popularity. This tune has been butchered by
amateur bands more than any other, it’s been incorporated into countless
cultural and commercial enterprises. For better or worse, it’s our theme song.

The National Recording
Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in
the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: Gypsy Love
Song.

About Me

This award-winning independent writer and editor returned to the place where he grew up after years as a wandering comedian. It's beautiful here. He served in a variety of capacities for the Boulder International Film Festival from 2006 through 2014. His writing portfolio includes stories written on topics ranging from grand opera to midget wrestling, for a diverse array of magazines, newspapers and websites worldwide -- including Film International, Westword, Boulder Magazine, Power Pickin', Parterre, Understanding Our Gifted, Movie Habit, Backstage, Muso, 5280, EnCompass, Senses of Cinema, Boulder Jewish News and . . . Philly Sports Faithful, for some reason. Also poet, playwright, screenwriter, blah blah blah. Check out his work at brad-weismann.com, filmpatrol.com and obitpatrol.com.

PM Dawn; Of the Heart Of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience

Ramones, Ramonesmania

Richard and Linda Thompson, Pour Down Like Silver

Richard Pryor, Wanted

Richard Thompson, Henry the Human Fly

Robert Klein, New Teeth

Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma/Carousel/The King and I

Roger Miller, The Return of Roger Miller

Rolling Stones, Some Girls

Shostakovich, Symphony #4 - Inbal, Wiener Symphoniker

Sibelius, Symphony 5 (final version) -- Vanska, Lahti Symphony

Sly and the Family Stone, Anthology

Steeley Dan, Pretzel Logic

Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life

Stravinsky, Les Noces -- Bernstein

Strength in Numbers, The Telluride Sessions

Talking Heads, Fear of Music

The Kingston Trio, The Kingston Trio

The Kinks, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One

The Mothers, Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets

The Mothers, We're Only in It for the Money

The Velvet Underground & Niko

Tom Tom Club, Tom Tom Club

Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner

Uncle Earl, Waterloo Tennessee

Van Morrison, Beautiful Vision

Village Music of Bulgaria/Bulgarian Folk Music

Vivaldi, The Four Seasons -- Zuckerman

Was (Not Was), Born to Laugh at Tornadoes

Ween, Chocolate and Cheese

Willie Dixon, The Chess Box

Willie Nelson, Shotgun Willie

XTC, English Settlement

" . . . you've got to stand up for the imaginative world, the imaginative element in the human personality, because I think that's constantly threatened . . . People do have imagination and sensibilities, and I think that does need constant exposition." -- John Read

"To disseminate my subjective thoughts and ideas, I stealthily hide them in a cloak of entertaining storytelling, since the depth of my thinking, shallow at best, might be challenged by erudite experts." -- Curt Siodmak